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A girl about 7-years-old, no more than 4-feet tall, dark hair barely touching her shoulders, stood on the sidewalk in front of her elementary school, eyeing the crosswalk and then, cautiously, eyeing me — the driver at the stop sign across the street, the driver who needed to stay put in order for her to safely cross. The message on the little girl’s face was easy to read: “Is it OK? May I step down from the curb and walk across this street on my way home?”

Stopped though I was and having looked both directions, I’d not immediately registered the child’s presence. Of course, I should have seen her, she was certainly unhidden, but a kid in a crosswalk has become an anomaly, so she didn’t enter the field of my awareness right away, and that is regrettable. It was seeing her that made me realize how rarely this occurs, how infrequently a young child is walking home from school alone or with a couple of friends.

I did remain stopped and motioned for her to cross. Though I smiled broadly she walked across not even glancing in my direction, but kept her eyes focused ahead of her, unwavering. Being that it was early in the school year, might this have been her first time walking home alone? Is that why she appeared unsure of herself?

When I was her age, I walked to and from school either by myself or with my friends every day. Nobody thought twice about it — neither children nor parents; that’s just the way it was. None of the parents drove their kids to school.On fall days, we walked, on cold, snowy ones we did, and in the heat of mid-June.

Arriving home in the afternoon, I’d call my mother at work to let her know I was about to start my homework, really I was, and then I’d eat a snack. Only twice did anything scary happen to me, and neither time scarred me for life. In fact, both times strengthened my sense of resilience and resourcefulness.

Once — this was in Chicago — bad weather was brewing as I got close to my street, Dorchester Avenue. The sky turned black and a wind came up that was so strong it flattened me against a fence. Sure, it was scary but also exciting.

Instead of something awful happening, something nearly magical did. As if from nowhere, a nun, in long black robes, appeared. She talked calmly, soothed my nerves, and then walked me home, staying with me till my mother got there. Sister Bernice went on to become one of my mother’s closest friends. She was an angel twice over.

The other time, also in Chicago, my friend Diane and I, having been told to never walk home the back way through the alley, did just that. We had stopped at the candy store and didn’t want to chance being caught by her stay-at-home mother with our sweet, chocolatey loot, so did what we’d been told not to. Don’t all children do that in at least one way and at one time or another? Pushing boundaries is a part of growing up.

A group of tough girls were gathered in that alley, as if they’d been waiting for us. They jumped us, pulled our hair, took our candy and left us a bit shaken up but, really, no worse for the wear. The next day, I walked to school and home again unaccompanied by an adult. Having received a harsh talking to and having learned my lesson,of course, I didn’t take the shortcut.

According to a recent New York Times book review of “Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear,” by Kim Brooks, “These days, if you let your kid walk to school alone or play in the park unsupervised, you risk arrest — especially if you’re a mother.”

The demands of my mother’s job wouldn’t have allowed her to walk me (as though I were a pup incapable of walking myself) to and from school. Nor would she have wanted to. In fact, she’d have laughed at the thought of it and told me stories about the miles she’d walked as a child through the blizzards to get to school!

Not only that. I’d have not wanted her to walk with me. I liked walking with my friends or by myself. Especially when I was alone, I noticed simple, unadorned things — birds in the trees, the brilliance of tree leaves, the old women chatting on the park bench. Our home life was troubled; my parents’ marriage was fraught with conflict. When I walked by myself I had much-needed time to think in a free-floating, unencumbered way about what troubled me, and that made it easier to cope.

Author Brooks writes, “People don’t think that leaving children alone is dangerous and therefore immoral. They think it is immoral and therefore dangerous.”

The message that’s being conveyed to children by such thinking is not only that the world isn’t safe and that they should be afraid but that they are incapable and not resourceful, that they are entirely dependent on their parents, that there is something wrong, or at least odd, with being alone, with wanting to be by oneself. Keeping kids tied to apron strings or neckties limits self-confidence and trust in their ability to think independently, critically, imaginatively, and to rely on their own competence to solve problems.

When, as a teenager, on visits to New York,I began taking the subway from my grandmother’s home in Queens to Manhattan. That helped me to hone my sixth sense, an ability to be attuned to who was near me and where the exit was; I knew to sit near the train door, to keep my purse close to my body, to avoid eye contact with unfamiliar men who made me feel uncomfortable.

Years before, my mother had taught me how, when crossing a busy New York street, to “make the light,” that’s what she’d say as we dashed across Fifth Avenue. I got to know my strengths and my limits, and always carried a dime to call home (now that should tell you something).

When, as an adult, I began walking in nature alone, I employed these same skills, the art of paying attention, the ability to trust my gut, a knowledge that life’s complications and rough spots could be understood and better dealt with by taking time to walk alone.

Another advantage of walking alone — in a city or in nature — is the firsthand experience of discovering the world. Alone I learn details about whichever micro-world I’m moving through, details I’d likely otherwise miss. My own mind and heart and eyes tell me what I need to know; I get to experience a place unfiltered by someone else’s point of view.

When I was young, my mother also used to say to me, “I want you to be able to move through the world with ease.” Thanks in part to her confidence in me, mostly, I do.

That’s what I wish for the little girl I watched crossing the street. May walking home from school be just the smallest step on her road to independence, to becoming a confident, curious adult. May she too grow to move through the world, at least most of the time, with ease.